Yang Tengbo, the Chinese businessman alleged to have been a spy for the People’s Republic, has denied being involved in espionage and insisted he would not harm his adopted country. He would have been in a position to make this case had he been named earlier and not subject to a court order protecting his anonymity.
That order was lifted by the High Court shortly before MPs were due to consider the matter, with every expectation that a backbencher would use parliamentary privilege to name him. Mr Yang’s association with the Duke of York, as well as photographs showing him alongside two prime ministers, were justification enough for his identity to be known.
This farcical ban could not possibly hold and the High Court should have denied the businessman any right to appeal once he had been declared persona non grata and banned from the UK.
In a statement, Mr Yang said he had done nothing wrong or unlawful “and the concerns raised by the Home Office against me are ill-founded. The widespread description of me as a ‘spy’ is entirely untrue.”
Nonetheless, MI5 clearly believed otherwise and the Home Secretary’s prohibition order was upheld by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). Mr Yang complained that SIAC decisions were based on secret evidence and closed proceedings, but that is because they rely on intelligence gathering which should not be compromised.
The Duke appears to have been collateral damage in an operation to expose Beijing’s extensive efforts to infiltrate the upper echelons of British society. He should have known better.
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